WGTC: Is this your Purple Rain?
Jerome Sable: It was more of a Purple Haze, given all the late nights. [Laughs] The truth is, whenever we would be jamming or have any kind of band setup, everyone would take a break after hours of jamming, and Eli would then not take a break. He’d jump on the drum kit and start playing the next instrument. We love music, and we have different kinds of training and background, but the biggest thing is our love for music and the whole high school experience we had getting immersed in AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, and Guns N’ Roses – a huge influence on us. It was very fun for us to go compose music in the styles we love, that aren’t even popular necessarily anymore, but we could compose in those styles for a reason, for a story, and then blend with orchestral.
WGTC: So now let’s talk about your horror love as well. I’m assuming you’re both horror fans, it comes out in the movie, so when did your love for horror start?
Jerome Sable: I definitely loved horror as a child, seeing the early Friday The 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street had a big impact on me, but I grew to have a deeper appreciation of horror while going through film school. We had done so much musical comedy on stage, having done theater for a long time, that when I was in film school without Eli, I was like “What could be an interesting thing I could challenge myself to do that I’m not normally comfortable with?” That’s something the teachers actually encouraged us to do, they said “Do things you don’t think you can do, or haven’t done, or aren’t comfortable with,” so I figured the opposite of musical comedy was horror.
My very first film school film was just a short disturbing psychological thriller about a pedophile math teacher because I’d never created anything with the intent of disturbing the audience as opposed to making them laugh. I actually found it was a very interesting thing. That got me hooked not only as a horror consumer, but as something that was very interesting to pursue from a creative standpoint.
Eli Batalion: I think Jerome leads with the horror passion. It’s very interesting for me because the way Jerome leads and instructs, I get educated. Growing up I was into various horror films, but it wasn’t a mass passion. From my experience, it’s fascinating to be introduced into this world and see it from an outsider’s perspective. It’s interesting to evaluate certain things and understand the community.
Jerome Sable: There’s a musical theme that we play on a broken piano that, for us, we were echoing the idea of The Exorcist type of theme that repeats and we were trying to do things like that, which was very fun.
Eli Batalion: That’s true. A lot of very memorable film music does come out of horror. It’s disproportionate how much comes from horror.
WGTC: So all the nods to iconic horror were thrown in there with horror fans in mind I’d assume?
Jerome Sable: Those were Easter Eggs, if you will, for the fans, because that’s what this project in many ways was motivated by. As Eli said before, doing shit we like, we’re riffing on existing genres and existing traditions, doing our variations on those themes. It felt appropriate to weave in those winks.
WGTC: Was it hard to sell Stage Fright as a project? Was the idea accepted quickly being so unique?
Jerome Sable: It was hard to sell. The pitch works well because you can summarize it by saying it’s a musical theater camp with a serial killer who hates musical theater. It’s like, “Oh, that sounds good, you get to kill all the people in Glee!” Beyond that it becomes a challenge to actually get financing, because people question how it’s going to work. The natural first objection is whether the musical component will alienate the horror crowd and vice versa. Yeah, we actually first tried to make the film in the Hollywood studio system, and while there was a company very supportive in developing the property for a long time, ultimately the studios all passed. There was some interest, but understandably it wasn’t a studio film – it’s not that kind of movie. Then we took it outside and made it independently.
WGTC: You mentioned at your post-screening Q&A how hard it was narrowing down a cast of talented singers/actors, so can you expand on that and touch upon any challenges faced while picking a cast who could hit the high notes while also selling horror performances?
Jerome Sable: It was just amazing. It made me want to make more stuff to find parts for all these talented people we didn’t get to cast. People would come in musically and nail this really complicated stuff effortlessly, stuff that we couldn’t do…
Eli Batalion: They’re yours for the hour…[Laughs]
Jerome Sable: Yeah, there are some funny stories about musical contractors, but no – it was tough because of that. Also, with theater actors, it was sometimes tough bringing them down for the close up and helping them be more real because on stage they have to project to the full audience. On film we’re right here, they don’t have to do anything else. Honestly, there was a lot of talent on this set. There are people who ultimately have small rolls in the final cut who in their own right could lead a play – super, super talents – so we hope to work with them more.
WGTC: So your killer is the one rocking out to metal music while screeching like Axl Rose – did you ever think about using a celebrity cameo at all for that part?
Jerome Sable: We did, in the casting we considered different musicians, and in our previous short film, The Legend Of Beaver Dam, we had a character named Stumpy Sam who we considered stunt casting, reaching out to other musicians, but to be honest, there are very few people who could musically hit all these notes. In the world. Obviously Axl Rose can, we’ve actually seen him recently and it’s impressive that his range is still in tact at 50 more or less, but there are very few people who can go as high as Rick Miller, having just the right amount of thrash and rasp while still making a musical sound that to us is still pleasing to the ear. We did consider some others, but that part is very hard to sing – it’s musically impossible. Rick has almost guaranteed that no one can take his role.
WGTC: Are you always going to have a musical component to your films?
Jerome Sable: I would say yes in the sense that there will always be music in films. Whether there will be song and dance is undetermined as of yet, but there will always be score. That’s the other thing that was fun for us. Between the songs, the score was so much fun, and I can’t see why we wouldn’t always want to do that.
WGTC: So thinking about your next project, would you want to go with another musical horror piece, or straight horror, or would you want to get away from horror?
Eli Batalion: We’re going for gay horror…[Laughs]
Jerome Sable: The most immediate next project for me is a short for The ABCs Of Death 2, and I have the letter V. It is exactly what you say – it’s not a musical at all. It’s a straight horror piece in an effort to push myself into something different. I’m curious what people will think of it. I know Eli hated it. [Laughs]
I’d like to thank Jerome Sable and Eli Batalion for this exclusive interview, and be sure to check out Stage Fright via your favorite VOD platform!